Eskişehir Keskaya'dan Yeni Bir Yontmataş Hammadde Kaynağı: Kırmızı Çakmaktaşı

Flint has always been an important raw material for humans due to its ease of availability in nature and processing. People have produced numerous tools from flint in line with their needs, particularly used in hunting and gathering. In addition, they have benefited from these flint tools in processing the food obtained by hunting and gathering. The surplus of flint tools was traded to other settlements; flint, which was very valuable for them, was not only sent in the form of tools but also the form of raw material. They even established some of their settlements near the flint deposits claiming rights over these resources and monopolizing their use. This study presents how a red-coloured flint deposit located 1 km away from the Keskaya settlement was used by the settlers to make chipped stone tools. The results of the XRF analyses on the raw material in question prove that the settlers used the red-coloured flints, backing up the observations made on chipped stone tools. This study aimed to understand the relations between the Keskaya settlement and raw materials, and it demonstrated that the settlers were aware of and utilized the sources around them. Studies conducted on and around the red-coloured flint deposit have shown that this resource was known and used not only in the Chalcolithic Period but in such an earlier period as the Middle Palaeolithic. This is proven by the large flakes of the Middle Palaeolithic Age found around the raw material source. In addition to the red-coloured flint deposit, another source was found about 15 km away from the settlement, on the terraces of the Porsuk Dam during the surveys around Keskaya; however, it is not yet clear whether this resource was used by the settlement or not. These studies have shown that further raw material sources might exist around the Keskaya settlement. Similar studies to be carried out in the following years will certainly increase the data on the raw materialsettlement relations and the knowledge of the relations with the surrounding settlements.